Ground issue is giving Gunners double the power of Tottenham

Tottenham's urgent need to build a new stadium has been highlighted in a report today that shows their matchday revenue is less than half that of Arsenal’s.

Spurs finished only a point behind the Gunners last season as they were pipped for a top-four spot but Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance shows how vast the gulf is between the north London rivals off the pitch.

White Hart Lane, with a capacity of 36,230, brought in £1.6million a game and £41.1m overall during the 2011-12 season but Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, boasting 60,361 seats, generated £3.3m a match and a total of £95.2m.

As a result Spurs’ total revenue of £144m was much less than Arsenal’s £235m, hindering the club’s chances of becoming an established top-four team and overhauling Arsene Wenger’s side.

Spurs have planning permission for a 56,000-seater stadium adjacent to their existing site but it is not expected to be completed until 2016.

Given that White Hart Lane was at 99.5 per capacity for games — the best of London’s Premier League sides — there is clearly a demand for tickets and Dan Jones of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group has spelt out the importance of fulfilling that demand.

Jones said: “It is a competitive disadvantage being at White Hart Lane compared to Emirates Stadium.

“A more modern stadium helps with what you do with corporate hospitality, what you can do on a non-matchday, for example concerts and events, and obviously gives you a bigger capacity for spectators. And therefore gives you more money.

“Tottenham are prioritising a move into a new stadium and being able to enjoy the same benefits that Arsenal enjoy at their stadium.”

Spurs’ wage bill of £94m was the sixth highest in the Premier League for 2011-12 — when they did finish in the top four — but it was still much less than the £143m spent by Arsenal, another sign of the difference between the financial musclepower of the two clubs.

Crucially, though, both clubs were under the Premier League average for the percentage of revenue spent on wages, which Deloitte believe is a good indicator of a club’s financial strength. This figure is also a guide to whether a club will meet UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules because the 2011-12 season is the first to come under the new regulations.

The average wages/revenue ratio in the top flight was 70 per cent and that is seen as a target figure.

As well as Arsenal (61 per cent) and Tottenham (65 per cent), Chelsea, who broke even at an operating level for the first time in the Roman Abramovich era, were also under the top flight average by four per cent.

However, Queens Park Rangers spent 91 per cent of their revenue on wages with £58m going on salaries in their first season back in the Premier League.

Fulham were also over the threshold with their £62m wage bill accounting for 76 per cent.

Aston Villa had the worst figure in the top flight with 94 per cent while Norwich were the lowest at 49 per cent.

“You usually find that if you can keep that ratio below 70 per cent, so every £1 you get in you spend less that 70p on the wage bill, you will almost certainly make a profit,” said Jones. “If a club has not got it down below 70 per cent, they almost certainly will not make a profit.

“With the UEFA rules and requirements to pass their break-even test, your bottom line becomes very important for footballing reasons as well as financial ones.

“It is important to comply with those regulations and one of the good checks of whether you are likely to comply is that wage/revenue ratio.”

The average wages/revenue ratio in the Championship was 89 per cent. Of the 28 clubs from the top two divisions with a ratio greater than 70 per cent, only four reported an operating profit.

Today’s report also shows that the revenue of the top 92 clubs in England exceeded £3billion for the first time. London’s 15 Premier League and Football League clubs had combined revenue of almost £900m, equivalent to around 30 per cent of that total.

West Ham’s revenue was down 42 per cent to £47m during their year in the Championship, showing the importance of Premier League football ahead of their move to the Olympic Stadium.